Kapil Kumar Joshi
Briquetting of organic waste like wheat straw, peanut shell, coconut fibers, rice husk, maize cob and various other agricultural residues is a common practice in India and abroad. Generally briquetting process is done by application of heat and pressure through electrically driven machines. This paper accounts for developing a manually operated bio briquetting machine for a harmful forest bio residue of Western Himalayas named as dry and fallen pine needles. Authors of this paper has successfully designed and manufactured manually driven forest bio residue briquetting machine in vertical and horizontal orientation. These machines are designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels and promote clean and green energy. The uniqueness of the paper is also reflected by adopting grass root level execution strategy for addressing climate change issue and creating livelihood opportunities for the communities through converting a harmful forest bio residue into a useful resource for clean energy under social entrepreneurship skills. It is further added that such an intervention will avoid devastating forest fires which are primarily initiated by huge quantity of dry and fallen pine needles lying on the forest floors. A manually operated bio briquetting machine finds it’s larger acceptability for a eco fragile, fire prone, char pine forest areas of Western Himalayas by eliminating fire hazards as well as providing direct economic benefits to the villages through the sale of bio briquettes.
Published Date: 2021-12-07;
